Aunt Vicki

At Whit's End, Whit is serving ice cream to Carla Perkins and her children, Bridget and Wyatt, when the family notices two strangers staring at them from a corner table. They turn out not to be strangers at all: the woman is Carla's sister, Vicki, and the boy is her son, Gideon - relatives no one has seen or spoken to in seven years. Vicki admits she has lost her job and her apartment in Tampa and has nowhere else to go, and she asks to stay with the Perkins family for a month while she gets back on her feet. On the way home, Bridget bluntly fills Wyatt in on their aunt's history: a flaky would-be model who never held a real job, a failed marriage, and a stint as such a careless babysitter that Wyatt once fell down the stairs on her watch. Wyatt, though, wonders whether being Christians means the family ought to forgive her. Carla and her husband Ron agree to take Vicki and Gideon in - with house rules: thirty days, a job search, church on Sundays, and a spot on the chore list.

At first things look hopeful. Vicki announces she is studying online for a nursing license, and she and Carla even laugh together over old childhood memories. Wyatt happily shows Gideon around Odyssey, including a ride in the Imagination Station, where Gideon touches Abraham Lincoln's hat. Gideon is an odd, entertaining cousin who calls himself a survivalist and swears off baseball because of its supposed injury statistics. But he also drops a bombshell: he tells Wyatt that his family has been poor for seven years mostly because of Carla - that the sisters were supposed to split their grandmother's inheritance, and Carla took it all. Believing Wyatt's family owes his, Gideon starts expecting Wyatt to pay his way, beginning with a chocolate sundae.

When a troubled Wyatt brings the question to his dad, Ron and Carla confront Vicki, and the real story spills out in a painful argument. After Grandma got sick, Carla and Ron cared for her for two years; when Vicki's turn came, she gave up after a single month to chase a modeling job in Austin that never amounted to anything. Since the Marines were moving Ron's family to Virginia, Carla placed Grandma in an excellent nursing home - one that used up the inheritance in about a year. Carla insists it was Grandma's money and she deserved it; Vicki shoots back that Carla got the family life she always dreamed of and demands, "At what point do I get what I deserve?" Carla says she is ready to forgive her sister at last, but only if Vicki proves she has changed by telling Gideon the truth. Vicki refuses - the story of the stolen inheritance is her excuse for every disappointment, and she can't bear for Gideon to think he has a loser for a mom. Ron sets a deadline: come clean by Thursday morning or find somewhere else to live, explaining to Wyatt, "You protect the woman you love."

Wyatt struggles with how kicking Aunt Vicki out can square with forgiveness, so he takes the question to Whit. Whit tells him about a friend in prison ministry who has seen genuinely changed prisoners and still, sometimes, believes they shouldn't be released - because too much freedom and temptation would be the worst thing for them. As Whit puts it, "Forgiveness doesn't always equal trust, just like love doesn't always equal acceptance." He assures Wyatt that his parents can forgive Vicki and still draw a wise, loving line. Meanwhile Wyatt draws a small line of his own, kindly telling Gideon he won't keep paying for things, because he'd rather have Gideon as a friend and cousin than as someone he lends money to.

Late that night, before the deadline ever arrives, Wyatt hears noises outside and finds Vicki and Gideon loading their car in the dark. Vicki claims she has landed a can't-miss modeling job in Phoenix that starts the very next night. Wyatt sadly discovers that Gideon's talk of loving the woods and pretending to be a hobbit was mostly invented, and that all his plans for their time together - Trickle Lake, bowling, roller skating - will never happen. He insists on getting Gideon's email address so another seven silent years won't go by, and urges Vicki to wake his parents and say goodbye properly. She won't. She only asks Wyatt to tell them she's sorry, promises they'll meet again soon, and drives away into the night, leaving Wyatt alone on the lawn with the quiet thought, "I think he would have liked Trickle Lake."